Photographing Immature Forster’s Terns On The Hunt And Catching Prey

Immature Forster’s Tern hunting for prey

I had fun testing my skills by photographing several immature Forster’s Terns that were hunting for and catching prey at Farmington Bay WMA two days ago.

Forster’s Terns in flight are challenging to follow with long lenses and to get these images I had to rely heavily on my tracking skills. All terns can be erratic in flight when they are on the hunt because they dip, dive, twist and turn very quickly.

I’d like to point out how I know that these are immature Forster’s Terns which is that adults of this species would not have any ginger-brown markings in their plumage but young Forster’s Terns do. The brown markings are more pronounced when these terns are younger and will fade over time because of wear. The terns in all of these images show some of those ginger-brown markings.

This young tern was flying over a pond while it actively hunted for prey.

Immature Forster’s Tern flying over a pond

This immature Forster’s Tern was flying low over the pond while it looked for prey in the water below it. The tern had a strand of filamentous algae looped over its back from under its wing which it probably picked up when it dove into the water, the pond is likely full of the algae because several of my images show it on the terns.

Young Forster’s Tern searching for prey

A bit of the filamentous algae can be seen here just above the rump of the young tern.

I lost focus with the terns in flight more times than I care to divulge but was able to lock focus on them just as many times so I count that as a win.

Immature Forster’s Tern with a small fish

And a few times I was able to photograph the terns when they captured prey after a dive. In this photo the immature Forster’s Tern had caught a small fish and was lifting off from the water with its prey.

Immature Forster’s Tern after dropping its tadpole prey

This final photo shows a young Forster’s Tern just after it dropped a tadpole that it had captured on a dive. Perhaps the tadpole was too large for the tern to swallow and it dropped it on purpose or maybe the tadpole wiggled its way of the the tern’s grasp but the end result was that the tern missed out on having a meal and a Franklin’s Gull that was below the tern ended up eating the tadpole without having to do any of the work.

The Forster’s Terns won’t be here in northern Utah much longer so I plan on trying to photograph them again before they migrate.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Forster’s Tern photos plus facts and information about this species.